Yes, you read it right. New wheels. And seats. And doors. Well, actually, a whole car. After the disastrous events surrounding the last German wheelie bin, they decided they wanted to try again. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with jumping, frolicking and bounding, but my mummies seem to think that’s impractical. Think about it. Me: leaping, running and hopping; fit, healthy and lean. Mummy El: getting driven around everywhere: stiff, creaking and shuffling. You know I make sense.
According to them, though, I hadn’t properly thought this through because cars are, apparently, useful for carrying my nuggets and potty litter home from the pet shop in, making the beach 7 minutes away instead of 75 minutes and leg-ache away (not that I ever get to go), and, of course there are those twice annual trips to the V-E-T, and even I have to admit that it’s a bit of a long way to go on foot when you’ve just had such a traumatic experience. If I’m honest, I don’t move particularly well when instruments have entered what should strictly be kept as an exit.
I knew there was no changing their minds, so all I could do was try to advise them. You’ll remember that I tried to warn them against the TT, but they weren’t interested in my opinion, but having reflected on that, and the fact that if they’d listened to me they could have saved themselves a deal of hassle and money, they agreed that maybe I should partake in this important decision-making process.
Obviously, the most important thing to consider when buying a car is how cool it is, so I discounted anything ugly or boring. Then, despite fervent protestations from Mummy J, I quashed any ideas they had of buying German. Spending billions of pounds on insurance and spare parts is a mistake I wasn’t prepared to let them make a second time. With the puppy in mind, it had to have nice, cosy back seats, and with the way Mummy El packs for day trips and holidays they need a massive boot. Looking at the volume of luggage they took I think she must have misheard Mummy J’s holiday proposition last month; she said “four night break”, not “fortnight break”!
So, my conclusion was that they needed a small SUV; something that wasn’t so big that it drank its way through their bank balance and they couldn’t park it sensibly, but something that wasn’t so small that the puppy was scrunched up in the back, wedged between winter jackets and cool boxes, and Mummy J couldn’t see out of either windscreen due to overhanging kayaks and surfboards. (Oops! I hope she doesn’t read this, I may have just let her Christmas present slip!)
So, I presented them with my findings and they added a couple of boring criteria to the list, like low mileage and age, and then heaved a massive sigh, as this apparently comes at a price. What do I know about that stuff? I thought you could buy diamonds with root vegetables. It took me forever to realise that’s not what they meant by 2 carats. So, new car = Mummy J working her poor little fingers to the bone + bored Tino.
I borrowed her laptop and started to search for a good deal for them whilst I had nobody to play with, and found them a couple to go and look at. Anyway, an already long story short, after a couple of dead ends I found them what I thought was the perfect car and arranged for them to go and drive it on Saturday. Mummy J dragged Mummy El’s creaking bones off to the garage, and 24 hours and a bit of haggling later, Mummy El was on the phone reading out the long number on her debit card, putting down a deposit! (Don’t worry, I made a note of the number as she was reading it out for future reference.)
Now, Mummy El has always told me that counting your chickens before they’ve hatched can cause you to get egg on your face, and in this instance I think she means for me not to get too excited about the car, as it’s not sat gleaming outside of our front door yet. So, on that note I’ll leave you to get on with your day and I’ll go and cross my paws that this time next week I can tell you all that I’ve been for a spin around the block in our pup-mobile. Does it still count as counting my chickens if I try reeeeally hard to see them as just eggs…?
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